


ladies don't fight

by julamei



Series: the lucy chronicles [3]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-08-15 18:24:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8067961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julamei/pseuds/julamei
Summary: lucy was told from a young age that ladies don't fight.





	

Lucy sits at the bar of the guildhall with her head on the counter.

“Hiya, Lu-chan!” Levy greets cheerfully as she gives her friend a quick hug. “Cheer up, girl, what’s the matter?” The smaller mage slips into the stool beside Lucy’s.

“Hey Levy-chan,” she smiles after picking her head up. “I’m just bored – why is it always so boring?”

Levy laughs. “Well, you could get a job, you know.”

Lucy’s disgusted face proves to be a sufficient answer, but she adds, “Ew, no way!” superfluously, making her friend laugh even harder.

“Levy, don’t tease me – life is tough when it’s boring.”

“Lu-chan, you could be writing!” And Levy’s eyes light up hopefully for a moment before she sighs. “If I had your imagination, I’d write all day long.”

Lucy blushes at the compliment. “No, you don’t want my imagination. It’d mean you’d spent years wishing you were somewhere else all the time,” she says with uncharacteristic cynicism.

Levy feels the atmosphere change at her companion’s honest words. “Why are you so somber today?” She asks in a tone full of concern. _She never talks about her past._

Lucy turns to Levy and attempts a smile. “No reason. Normally there’s enough going on here that I don’t get caught up in stupid stuff.”

Levy takes stock of her words and looks around the guild. Their guildmates sit at tables, raising beers and exhanging bets and raucous laughter. This is their norm, however, and Levy can’t help but agree. “Yeah, it is strangely passive today.”

“Do you want to go to the library?” She offers.

Lucy shakes her head. “I have a couple books at home I should be reading,” she says dismissively. Levy narrows at her eyes. _Plenty of good options out there but she’s still moping…_ Levy sees in the answer in her mind right away – her friend is lonely! Before Levy can suggest something, Natsu storms through the double-doors and yells, “Fight me, Ice Princess!”

Lucy’s head spins around faster than her whip can crack. Levy smiles at how magnetic her friend finds that voice (and presence) to be.

Gray, who’d been sitting with Juvia, Cana, Elfman, and Lisanna, stands up at Natsu’s words. “You’re such a loudmouth, fire-brain,” he taunts while cracking his knuckles (and losing his shirt). “I’ll enjoy shutting you up!”

Before either boy moves, they glance around conspicuously. Levy hears Lucy giggle. “They’re looking for Erza!” she sniggers. “Natsu knows full well that she left yesterday on a mission – looks like he’s taking advantage of her absence!”

“Don’t sound so excited, Bunny Girl,” says a deep voice behind Levy startles them both. Lucy nearly spills her lemonade and Levy half-falls off the stool. Gajeel’s hand darts out to the side of the small girl’s hip and settles her. Levy blushes at the heat of his hand through her dress and feels it linger a few moments longer than necessary.

“I- I’m not excited!” Lucy protests lamely, shaking Levy out of her stupor. “Those two are always at it, how is this any different?”

The girls watch Gajeel smile and feel a corresponding dread grow inside of them. “Well if you want to spice it up a bit, why don’t you go join them?”

By this time the boys have begun to brawl. Lucy’s eyes flash over to the commotion, and the upended benches and flying fists make her pale.

“Leave her alone, Gajeel, you know Lucy’s not a fighter,” Levy placates, coming to her friend’s rescue. She pats Lucy’s back consolingly. “And a good thing, too, Lu-chan, because gods know Team Natsu doesn’t need another hothead.”

Over his crossed arms, Gajeel’s red eyes gleam. “No,” he begins, “I don’t think that’s it at all. Bunny Girl’s got guts – we’ve all seen it before – there’s a reason she don’t fight.”

“Can you two stop talking about me like I’m not even here!” Lucy shouts, her leg shooting out and stomping her foot though she isn’t standing.

“Then participate in the conversation,” Gajeel goads her. “Why don’t you like fighting?”

“I do like fighting! I’m in Fairy Tail for Mavis’ sake – all we do is fight and drink!”

“Two things you don’t particularly partake in,” Gajeel goads. Levy sits there, watching their back-and-forth with amusement.

“What seems to be going on here?” Pantherlily asks from her ear. He sets down on the counter next to her.

“Oh, just Gajeel being pushy,” Levy replies. Lily hums in response and takes to watching the interaction with the solid script mage.

Lucy is still spluttering from Gajeel’s question. “Levy doesn’t really do those things, either, so I don’t see what the problem is,” Lucy deflects. Levy just laughs at her friend’s retort. “That’s not much of an answer, Lu-chan.”

By now Lucy’s face is flushed dangerously red and she’s balled her fists. _Maybe we should back off_ , Levy thinks, completely ignoring how easily she identified herself and Gajeel as a team. _She clearly doesn’t want to talk about it… But now I’m curious! She’s hiding something, which means there actually IS a reason!_ Levy feels a spike of excitement at the thought. She considers, and prides, herself as one of the few pacifists in the guild, but Lucy; she may have a gentle heart, but she is not a peacekeeper – no one on Team Natsu shies away from fights, and Lucy never hesitates to use violence when it’s against Natsu or Happy, or in a do-or-die situation. _Nope, not a pacifist._

Lucy’s ire cools at Levy’s words. She pauses for a moment and looks at Gray and Natsu, each with a fistful of the other’s hair and a punch – alight with their respective elements – cocked back and ready to strike. Her eyes soften and she holds the glance a bit longer.

* * *

 

_At eleven years old, Lucy is bursting with restless energy and her tutors can hold her attention for only so long. The maths tutor, Goretti, sighs as he catches his pupil with her eyes out the window for the fourth time in as many minutes._

_“Okay, Lucy-sama, let’s make a deal.” At this, the girl’s eyes light up._

_“What kind of deal, sensei?” She asks cautiously. In her mind, pages and pages of math problems loom treacherously._

_“If I let you go out and play today, you will be ready to work through everything you’ll miss today PLUS our material for tomorrow.”_

_Lucy taps her finger against her lips as she considers the proposal. In the end, the call of the sun and the grass and the wind is one she can’t ignore. “Deal, sensei!” She smiles and holds out a hand for her teacher to shake._

_Once outside, she runs down to the gardener’s house and knocks on the door. A middle-aged woman in an apron answers after a few moments._

_“Yes, Lucy-sama?” The woman asks after the girl hurriedly curtsies._

_“Can Swan come out and play?” Lucy gushes. The woman looks back into her home, before turning back to her boss’ daughter. “Of course she can. Let me go get her ready to meet you.”_

_Lucy jumps and claps her hands. “Thank you!”_

_Several minutes later, a small girl with brown hair, brown eyes, and large rainboots meets Lucy behind the house._

_“Lucy-chan! Let’s play pirates again!” The girl proposes, picking up a stick and swinging it at Lucy. The girl laughs and runs to find a bigger stick. “You bet, Swan-chan! I was hoping we would! I’ll beat you this time for sure!”_

_The girls dance around the yard, paring and thrusting at each other with no skill or grace. Swan’s mother watches from the kitchen window and shakes her head. “I hope we don’t regret this,” she says to herself, though she can’t feel guilty about the smile on her daughter’s face._

_The girls play for the rest of the afternoon, using Swan’s doll and a gardening glove as hostages to protect or kidnap depending on the moment. They scurry behind trees and sheds, pop out at each other, and Lucy even pushes Swan to the ground at one point, but quickly lends a hand to help her up. “Sorry, Swan-chan!”_

_Once the sun starts to set, Lucy knows she has to be home in time to change and eat dinner. Her father rarely joins her for dinner, but he always makes a point to check in on her or ask the servants about her conduct during the meal. By eleven years old, she knows she can’t always ask the servants to lie for her and that saving up their trust and respect for rainy days is a more effective plan of action._

_“Bye, Swan-chan! I’ll try to come back again later this week!” Lucy calls to the gardener’s daughter on her walk back to the mansion._

_She hums as she bounds up the steps to her room, but freezes once she reaches the landing. Her father is walking down the hallway toward her with a face that means trouble._

_Lucy checks her feet – no, she’d left her shoes in the mudroom – she puts her hands to her face and hair, then cringes._

_“I’ll wash up, father!” She nearly screams as he stomps over to her. “And- and I’ll wash the dress myself,” she adds hysterically after seeing the state of her housedress. It isn’t one of her finer gowns – she knows better than to wear one of those outside – but grass stains and dirt discolor it._

_Her father grabs her by the arm and yanks her back down the stairs. He marches her to the servants’ quarters and shouts for her tutor once the door swings shut._

_“Is this what I pay you for?” He yells in Goretti’s face. “I house you, I feed you, and I pay you to teach my empty-headed daughter something so she won’t be an embarrassment to the family!_

_“And here,” he shakes Lucy in front of him as evidence of her tutor’s wrongdoing. “She couldn’t be more of an embarrassment in this state!” Her father releases his grip on her arm, then leans back and slaps her tutor in the face. “If I ever find you shirking the duties of your contract again, I will fire you and make it so no other family in all of Fiore will hire you!”_

_Her father stands there for a moment and then straightens, breathing deeply and adjusting his tie. “Begone.” He sneers at the assemblage of servants, all of whom scattered quickly._

_Lucy has watched the scene with mounting horror and guilt. When her father turns his furious focus on her, she feels her body curl into itself; there is no escape now._

_“And you, worthless daughter,” he snarls, “will do your best to be a lady fit of the Hearfilia name.”_

_“Fa-father, it’ll never – ” Lucy starts, but she cringes as her father’s body seems to grow larger with the power of his anger._

_“Young ladies do not fight!” He explodes. “Our world is one of sophistication and civility! We are above such vulgarity. Dirt and grass – look at your face! Your hands!” He points out the offending scratch marks and dirt stains that adorn her face, arms, and hands from her hours fooling around. “You will not consort with the servants nor their families, and if I ever catch you rolling around in the mud again,_ you won’t leave this house until you’re married! _”_

_Lucy’s tears stream silently down her face. She feels empty and hot all over from her father’s rampage, and a surfeit of guilt, embarrassment, anger, hurt, and self-loathing – emotions few eleven-year-olds can name let alone have felt – wrestle in a whirlwind within her._

_She hiccups and tries to catch her breath. “Yes father,” she replies in a small voice devoid of her humanity. She holds perfectly still as her father sighs, rubbing his face with a hand and glaring at her one last time before twirling and striding through the servant quarters’ door._

_“She couldn’t be any less like Layla,” she hears him say he departed. And with that last stab to her heart, Lucy waits a moment, then follows her father through the door and up to her room. She cries until she forgets how to, then falls asleep._

* * *

Lucy’s forgotten Swan’s name and the game they played that afternoon, but she’ll never forget the scolding her father gave her that night. His words, his face, his barking tone all imprinted themselves into her memory in the way that traumatizing events crystallize and keep, like eggs in a basket or insects in a web. 

The eyes that meet Levy’s are not what the solid script mage expects: they are shining and wounded, despite the warm brown Levy has come to know and love. They quickly harden.

“Lu-chan?” She asks slowly.

Lucy shakes her head and smiles at her. “I enjoy watching fighting, obviously, and I’ll do what I have to to protect my nakama, but I’ve never been very good at it,” she answers simply. It’s exactly the right thing to say, and yet the words only further concern Levy. Gajeel watches the two with an air of mirth. _Bunny Girl is seriously repressed_ , he thinks.

Some hint of Levy’s emotion must show on her face, because after keeping her gaze, Lucy shrugs and looks away. “My father never approved of fighting.” _And that’s the end of this discussion_ , Levy hears her friend say in the silence. Levy watches her for a moment longer and then her resolves solidifies. _Lucy is my best friend, and whatever’s happened in the past is the past._

Levy gets up, playfully pushing Gajeel out of the way, and clasps her hand around Lucy’s arm. “Alright, girl, we’re going to get ice cream. It’s hot as hell outside, boring as church in here, and ice cream is the answer!” she declares and drags the girls past her scuffling comrades – “Bye, Natsu! Bye, Gray!” Lucy shouts as they pass – and out onto the streets of Magnolia.


End file.
